Brimstone
Brimstone is an unincorporated community near Robbins in southern Scott County, nestled in mountain valleys along Brimstone Creek. It has long been a coal-mining community, and was the sight of two fatal mining disasters in the 20th century. It was originally known as Hughett, for the name of the first postmaster, Jasper Hughett. Another post office was located at what is now known as Lone Mountain, near the head of Brimstone Creek.
See Also: Communities of Scott County
Geography
Brimstone Creek originates near Lone Mountain in southern Scott County, where several smaller streams merge. Brimstone Creek flows north and empties into New River south of Huntsville, near where U.S. Highway 27 crosses the river at the former town of New River.
Brimstone Road departs U.S. Highway 27 at Robbins and travels approximately three miles until it intersects with Low Gap Road at Brimstone Creek. Low Gap Road follows Brimstone Creek from where it empties into New River south to Brimstone Road. After the intersection, Brimstone Road continues another 11 miles before ending a short distance beyond Lone Mountain, near the Scott-Morgan county line.
Commerce and Business
There are no retail stores in the Brimstone community today. Current commerce centers around ATV-related businesses, including Full Throttle Campground, which is located a short distance beyond Lone Mountain.
Historically, business activities at Brimstone have centered around the coal, timber, and natural gas industries. This began in the 1880s, after construction of the Cincinnati & Southern Railroad opened Scott County’s natural resources reserves to outside exploration. Soon after the railroad opened in 1880, the Knoxville & New River Railroad was built from Robbins to near Lone Mountain, reaching Brimstone Creek in the vicinity of where Indian Fork Creek empties into Brimstone Creek. The purpose of the railroad was to reach the timber reserves in the area of Lone Mountain, with plans to extend the railroad over the Cumberland Mountains to Knoxville, though it was never completed.
Years later, the Brimstone Railroad extended from New River to Lone Mountain, primarily for the purposes of assisting the coal mining industry.
Post Offices
Historically, two post offices served the Brimstone community: Hughett, which was located near where Huntsville Branch and Indian Fork Creek empty into Brimstone Creek at Slick Rock, and Cortland, which was located near Lone Mountain.
Hughett opened in January 1887 and was named for its postmaster, Jasper Hughett. He was later a prominent businessman at Robbins, owning a retail store and a share of the bank there.
Cortland opened in December 1892 with Eldridge Shannon serving as postmaster. It isn’t clear where the name originated. In September 1935, Hughett post office closed and moved to Cortland. Its last postmaster was May Chambers. In December 1936, Cortland post office closed and moved to Robbins. Cassie Griffith was the last postmaster there.
Today, the Robbins post office continues to serve Brimstone, which is located in the 37852 zip code.
Schools
A number of schools served the Brimstone community through the years. In 1935, there were no fewer than five elementary schools located along Brimstone Creek: Pemberton, which was located where Brimstone Road meets Low Gap Road; Slick Rock; Gilbert, located just south of Slick Rock; Lone Mountain; and Griffith, located on Indian Fork Creek in the vicinity of Griffith Mountain.
High school students from Brimstone traditionally attended Robbins High School, which opened in 1906 with Jasper Hughett as one of its organizers. The first class to graduate was in 1915; the first class to receive high school diplomas was in 1918. Robbins High School closed in 1971, along with high schools at Norma and Huntsville, when the consolidated Scott High School opened near Huntsville. The last principal at Robbins High School, Taskel Welch, was the first principal at Scott High School. It continues to serve as the high school for students at Brimstone today.
Origins
The first settler on Brimstone Creek was likely Pvt. Joseph Griffith, a Revolutionary War veteran who served as personal bodyguard to Gen. George Washington and was present at the Siege of Yorktown when British Lord Gen. Charles Cornwallis surrendered and ended the war. It isn’t clear exactly when Griffith moved to Brimstone Creek, but he received a land grant there for his war service. It also isn’t exactly clear where Griffith’s farm was located. However, he’s buried at Goad Cemetery, which is located approximately halfway between Slick Rock and Lone Mountain.
In its earliest days, the Brimstone community was part of Anderson County, which was formed in 1801 from portions of Knox and Grainger counties. In 1817, Morgan County was formed and included the Brimstone community. In 1849, Scott County was formed and included the Brimstone community.
First families
As mentioned above, the first family to settle Brimstone Creek was likely the family of Revolutionary War veteran Joseph Griffith. Members of the Griffith family are still numerous at Brimstone today. Some other early families include the Robbins family, the Hughett family, the Goad family, the Walker family and the Overton family, among others.
The Robbins family at Brimstone dates back to at least 1814, when 140 acres were surveyed on Brimstone Creek for Michael Robbins. He appeared on an Anderson County tax list as early as 1805. He married Mary “Polly” Lewallen, the daughter of Anderson Grant Lewallen of Black Wolf Creek near Glenmary. Their children included Elizabeth Emily Robbins Goad, William Robbins, John Michael Robbins, and Jonathan Robbins.
It was at William Robbins’ home that the Battle of Brimstone was fought.
Elizabeth Emily Robbins married Joshua Goad Jr., the grandson of Revolutionary War veteran Abraham Goad, who settled on New River south of Huntsville. Joshua and Elizabeth settled what is now known as the Walker farm where Indian Fork Creek empties into Brimstone Creek. One of their daughters, Almira Goad, married Daniel Walker. Other children included son John Goad, who served as sheriff of Scott County, and Etta Tennessee Goad, who married school superintendent William F. Lee and was the grandmother of U.S. Congressman and Knoxville Mayor John J. Duncan Sr.
Another key early family was the Hughett family, beginning with William Hughett, who married Jane “Jincy” Jeffers. It isn’t clear when he moved to Brimstone, but the Hughett family became quite prominent there. His son was John Hughett, who married Christena Lewallen and served as justice of the peace for 44 years. One of John’s sons, Jasper Hughett, was the first postmaster at Hughett and later a prominent merchant at nearby Robbins. Another son, Frank Hughett, served as Scott County Sheriff.
The Walker family appears to have come to Scott County with Dan Walker’s father, Samuel Walker (1818-1907). He was from North Carolina, and married Mary Ann Elizabeth Hutson (1818-1910). They did not move to Indian Fork Creek until sometime after 1850.
Brimstone in the Civil War
One of the earliest skirmishes in Scott County during the Civil War occurred on Brimstone Creek, at the home of Capt. William Robbins, an organizer of the Scott County Home Guard. Like most Scott Countians, Robbins was loyal to the Union during the war. Scott County voted against secession by the largest margin of any county in Tennessee, 541-19. In December 1861, Robbins and dozens of other men met at the county courthouse in Huntsville and pledged their loyalty to the federal government and their community, vowing to protect each other’s homes from Confederate intrusions.
For his involvement with the Home Guard, Robbins was targeted by Confederate soldiers. A regiment from Alabama, under the command of Col. Robert Vaughn, visited the Robbins home while Robbins was away on April 1, 1862. Later, Robbins and other members of the Home Guard attacked the rebels in what became known as the Battle of Brimstone. There were differing accounts of the skirmish’s outcome, but it is known that Scott County’s first battlefield death — Ambers Strunk — occurred there. Ultimately, the Confederate troops were forced to withdraw from the home.
Not everyone from Brimstone was loyal to the Union. Isaac Griffith — a great-grandson of Pvt. Joseph Griffith — joined the Confederate army and was later indicted in the murder of Ranson Vanover and Larkin Cross. He was forced to flee Scott County as a result.
Two of Griffith’s relatives, brothers Hamilton Griffith and Fielding Griffith, trained together in the Union army at Camp Dick Robinson in Kentucky. There, Fielding Griffith became Scott County’s first casualty of the war, when he died after being poisoned by a woman selling apple pies.
Coal Mining History
While the cutting of virgin timber came earlier, and natural gas exploration largely came later, Brimstone’s biggest industry through the years has been coal mining. The earliest mines were deep mines in the vicinity of Huntsville Branch. Later, considerable strip mining occurred around most of Brimstone’s mountain peaks, including Griffith Mountain, Lowe Mountain, Round Mountain, and elsewhere.
There were railroad sidings at Huntsville Branch and near Chimney Hollow, at the mouth of Hutson Branch, where coal was loaded onto railroad cars. Coal mining was the lifeblood of the Brimstone Railroad, which ran from the Southern Railroad at New River to Lone Mountain following its construction in 1942 by the W.M. Ritter Lumber Co.
There were two major mining disasters along Brimstone Creek: the Phillips-West Mine explosion in 1959, which killed nine people, and the Kline Mine explosion in 1965, which killed five people.
Brimstone Today
In time, the coal mines along Brimstone Creek played out, and mining activity had stopped completely by the early 1990s. Heavily logged since the early 1900s, Brimstone saw timber-cutting return with a vengeance in the mid 1990s, following the opening of a chip mill in Caryville, Tenn. that made cutting pulpwood more profitable. Timber-cutting continues in the area today, though on a much smaller scale than in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as most of the current generation of harvestable timber was cut during that time.
The 12-mile Brimstone Railroad, which had been sold to the Southern Railroad and reorganized as the New River Railroad, was sold to local businessmen David Brewster and Dwayne King in 2015, after being officially abandoned. The steel rails and timbers were removed from the rail grade.
Natural gas exploration began in earnest along the mountain ridges towering over Brimstone Creek in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Though new wells are not being drilled, natural gas continues to be pumped from the region, primarily through the Brimstone Project, which consists of more than 42,000 contiguous acres of land leased to Jehovah Jireh Resources LLC of McMinnville, Tenn.
In the mid 2000s, much of the mountainous terrain around the Brimstone community was leased to Brimstone Recreation, which built and maintained hundreds of miles of off-highway vehicle trails on more than 40,000 acres of land that were originally owned by the Brimstone Land Company. At its peak, Brimstone Land Company — which consisted primarily of local investors and owned land for mining, logging, and oil and gas production — consisted of one-sixth of the total land mass of Scott County.
Brimstone Recreation, headquartered in Huntsville, continues to operate today, and leases lands in the Brimstone community. However, its lease holdings today consist of a little more than 19,000 acres. The rest of the land it originally leased was purchased by the State of Tennessee in the late 2000s and incorporated into the New River Unit of the North Cumberland Wildlife Management Area, which is the second-largest contiguous tract of public land in Tennessee behind Cherokee National Forest. In all, the North Cumberland WMA includes land in Scott, Campbell, Anderson, Morgan and Claiborne counties. In the Brimstone area, the North Cumberland WMA includes much of the mountainous terrain east of Brimstone Creek and south of Huntsville Branch, extending southward to the Lone Mountain area and further south, connecting with Frozen Head State Forest in Morgan County.